Road Improvement Costs

Alistair Carmichael: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) of 19 December 2005, Official Report, columns 2318–2319W o road improvement costs, whether the figures for the most recent estimate or final cost of each scheme represents the amounts paid to the scheme contractors in each case; and whether the Highways Agency is liable for additional costs in each case.

Stephen Ladyman: The latest agreed budget costs for projects, in the Government's Targeted Programme of Improvements, represent the current approved estimate of the full outturn cost. The budget cost estimates include an element for construction, alongside other costs, which will be paid in due course to the scheme contractor. Those estimates are routinely reviewed and may be subject to change as schemes progress.

Child Support Agency

David Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what his estimate is of the (a) annual running costs of the Child Support Agency and (b) annual saving in benefits as a consequence of Child Support Agency maintenance payments for each year from 1996 to 2005; and if he will make a statement.

James Plaskitt: The administration of the Child Support Agency is a matter for the Chief Executive. He will write to the hon. Member with the information requested. Letter from Stephen Geraghty:
	In reply to your recent Parliamentary Question about the Child Support Agency the Secretary of State promised a substantive reply from the Chief Executive.
	You asked the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what his estimate is of the (a) annual running costs of the Child Support Agency and (b) annual saving in benefits as a consequence of Child Support Agency maintenance payments for each year from 1996 to 2005; and if he will make a statement.
	The table below shows the requested information as reported in the Annual Report and Accounts of the Child Support Agency.
	Details of the annual savings in benefits are unavailable before 1999–2000, since they are not explicitly stated in the Annual Report and Accounts.
	Since March 2003 Child Support applications have been dealt with under the new scheme. The new scheme introduced the Child Maintenance Premium, this is a £10 per week disregard of maintenance when calculating parent with care entitlement to Income Support. The Child Maintenance Premium was introduced to provide an incentive to parents with care to co-operate with the Agency and also to selectively target additional support to children in the poorest households. A consequence of child maintenance premium has been a reduction in the amount of maintenance collected by the Agency and paid to the Secretary of State to offset the annual cost of Income Support administered by Job Centre Plus.
	
		
			£ million 
			  Annual agency running costs Annual savings in benefits Total maintenance collected 
		
		
			 2004–05 325.60 117.40 585.41 
			 2003–04 323.00 141.30 580.27 
			 2002–03 294.30 146.50 572.55 
			 2001–02 290.40 137.50 528.45 
			 2000–01 250.00 143.00 502.55 
			 1999–2000 260.30 148.00 460.68 
			 1998–99 231.20 — 392.38 
			 1997–98 225.90 — 306.16 
			 1996–97 224.50 — 213.21 
			 1995–96 199.30 — 134.45 
		
	
	Note:
	Annual saving In benefit relates to maintenance collected passed to the Secretary of State rather than the parent with care.
	The category of annual benefit savings covers only maintenance paid to parents with care in receipt of income support and jobseekers allowance. In recent years the proportion of the caseload that relates to non-benefit parents with care has increased. Failure to secure maintenance for this group of customers would result in some parents with care having to claim income related benefits.

Debt Management

Philip Hammond: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what his Department's Debt Management administration budget was for each quarter since Q2 2001, broken down by main area of expenditure.

James Plaskitt: Debt Management was established within the department in April 2001. Financial records for Debt Management as a separate entity were not available prior to April 2002. Between 2001 and 2005, responsibility for staff working on benefit Debt Management was transferred to the organisation, with ten debt centres being operational from August 2004. All overpayment work from Jobcentre Plus and The Pension Service was transferred to Debt Management by August 2005.
	The details required are in the following tables:
	
		
			 £ million 
			 Period April-June 2002 July-September 2002 October-December 2002 January-March 2003 
		
		
			 Staff 11.375 11.696 12.093 11.829 
			 Non-staff 1.011 1.353 1.314 1.000 
			 Total budget 12.386 13.049 13.407 12.829 
		
	
	
		
			 £ million 
			 Period April-June 2003 July-September 2003 October-December 2003 January-March 2004 
		
		
			 Staff 9.555 10.125 10.877 11.964 
			 Non-staff 1.606 1.864 1.864 0.367 
			 Total budget 11.161 11.989 12.741 12.331 
		
	
	
		
			 £ million 
			 Period April-June 2004 July-September 2004 October-December 2004 January-March 2005 
		
		
			 Staff 11.638 11.665 11.337 11.041 
			 Non-staff 1.061 1.147 1.061 1.070 
			 Total budget 12.699 12.812 12.398 12.111 
		
	
	
		
			£ million 
			 Period April-June 2005 July-September 2005 October-December 2005 
		
		
			 Staff 13.022 14.261 14.091 
			 Non-staff 2.394 2.421 3.876 
			 Total budget 15.416 16.682 17.967 
		
	
	The increase in staff costs in 2005–06 is accounted for by the movement of work from other DWP businesses to Debt Management and the consequential staff increase.

Fluoridation Schemes

Brian H Donohoe: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will list the strategic health authorities that have commenced consultation with (a) the public, (b) other stakeholders and (c) water companies on commencing artificial fluoridation of water supplies.

Caroline Flint: Strategic health authorities (SHAs) have not started consultation on fluoridation with the public and other stakeholders as laid down in Section 58 of the Water Act 2003 and the Water Fluoridation (Consultation) Regulations 2005 No. 921.
	We understand that Greater Manchester SHA is currently undertaking discussions on the feasibility of fluoridation with United Utilities, the water undertaker in the North West of England.

Fluoridation Schemes

Brian H Donohoe: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will place in the Library a copy of the guidance issued to water companies on the legal situation should a strategic health authority request a water fluoridation scheme.

Caroline Flint: The Chief Inspector of Drinking Water issued an information letter to all water companies in England and Wales on the 11 April 2005 together with a copy of the code of practice on technical aspects of fluoridation of water supplies 2005. Section 2 of the code of practice outlines the legal framework for water fluoridation as in Section 58 of the Water Act 2003 and the changes from original provisions within the Water Industry Act 1991 as they effect water companies in England and Wales. This guidance has been placed in the Library.

Food Standards Authority

Jim Dowd: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will assess the merits of introducing proposals for a statutory traffic light of food labelling should the Food Standards Authority be unable to reach a voluntary code within the industry.

Caroline Flint: At its meeting on 9 March, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) board agreed recommendations for a voluntary front-of-pack signpost labelling scheme. The FSA is not advocating a legislative approach as it is considers that working closely with industry is the most suitable means to stimulate change. Both the FSA and the Department are encouraged that certain supermarkets are taking up the voluntary scheme and that an increasing number of companies are considering applying this traffic light-based signpost labelling to processed food products.
	Food labelling is governed by European Union legislation. The European Commission recognises that there is a need for simplified nutrition labelling and is reviewing the Nutrition Labelling Directive (90/496/EEC). One aspect of this review will be how to reflect the consumer demand for clear front-of-pack nutritional information.

Medicines

Maria Miller: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many Type II variations to marketing authorisations targeted for approval within 90 days in the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency business plan are taking longer than the target time for approval; and by how much each has exceeded this period.

Steve Webb: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many Type II variations to marketing authorisations took longer than 90 days for the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency to approve in the last period for which figures are available; and how long each took.

Jane Kennedy: In the most recent full-year for which figures are available, 2004–05, the assessment targets of 90 or 120 days (applicable where there are changes to the indications for use of the product) were 100 per cent. achieved, with the equivalent figures for the 90 day target for the years 2001–03 being 99 per cent.
	The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is unable to provide reliable figures for more recent assessment of Type II variations due to transitional implementation issues associated with the introduction of a new information management system. Overall approval times have lengthened, mainly due to delays in validating applications, and assessment targets are not being met in a proportion of cases. However, urgent cases are being processed promptly. The MHRA is aware of the impact these delays are having on pharmaceutical company business and is taking a number of steps to improve its service levels. These include organisational restructuring, re-training of staff, voluntary schemes for extended working hours and information system performance enhancements.

Pre-registration Nursing Courses

Anne Milton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health 
	(1)  what is the target attrition rate for students on pre-registration nursing courses;
	(2)  how many and what percentage of student nurses in England quit pre-registration nursing courses in each of the past five years; and what reasons were given by those leaving the courses;
	(3)  what the attrition rate was for each pre-registration nursing course in 2004–05.

Liam Byrne: I refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the
	the hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor) on 29 March 2006 concerning numbers of students and proportions withdrawing from pre-registration nursing courses.
	Analysis of higher education statistics agency data from 2003–04 indicates that of those pre-registration nursing students leaving a course prior to completion, the reasons for leaving and percentage of students is shown in the table.
	
		
			 Reason for leaving course Percentage 
		
		
			 Personal reasons 50 
			 Academic failure 24 
			 Health reasons 7 
			 Written off after a lapse of time 6 
			 Financial reasons 5 
			 Transferred to another institution 3 
			 Were excluded 3 
			 Went into employment 1 
			 Died 1 
		
	
	The human resources performance framework, published in October 2000, set a target of 13 per cent. attrition (leavers) for those students entering training in the 2000–01 academic year. Attrition rates are best determined in the light of local circumstances and will be addressed by strategic health authorities in partnership with their local providers of education and training.

School Finance

Peter Luff: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills pursuant to the Answer of 15 February to Question [49418], if she will make a written statement on when she plans to place figures on school funding in the Library.

Jacqui Smith: On 16 January 2006 we placed in the House of Commons Library the latest release of my Department's series showing total revenue funding per pupil in each year from 1997–98 to 2005–06, updated to reflect the latest GDP deflators. A version of the series is also available on the Teachernet website.
	, the Department continues to work on figures for spending on school provision in the years before 2006–07 so that they are comparable with the new funding system based around the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG). There has been no change in our plans for producing this data: it will be placed in the Library as soon as it is available.
	The data I placed in the Library to accompany my written statement of 7 December 2005 on the School Funding settlement for 2006–07 and 2007–08, sets out how much DSG each authority will receive for those years. That statement and more detailed information may also be found on the Teachernet website.

Special Educational Needs

Gordon Marsden: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what proportion of children in England (a) given a fixed-term exclusion from school and (b) permanently excluded from school in the last period for which figures are available had a (i) statemented and (ii) non-statemented special educational need.

Jacqui Smith: The requested information is given in the table. Figures given in the table refer to cases of exclusion rather than the number of pupils excluded, as some pupils were excluded more than once during the year.
	
		Maintained primary, secondary and all special schools (23)(24): Number of permanent exclusions by special educational needs (SEN), England, 2003/04 (estimates)(25)
		
			  Permanent exclusions Fixed period exclusions 
			  Number of exclusions Percentage of permanent exclusions(26) Percentage of school population(27) Number of exclusions Percentage of permanent exclusions(26) Percentage of school population(27) 
		
		
			 2003/04(25)   
			 Pupils with statements of SEN 1,040 11 0.44 39,790 12 17.1 
			 Pupils without statements of SEN(28) 8,840 89 0.12 304,710 88 4.1 
			 Of which:   
			 SEN pupils without statements 5,240 53 0.46 133,290 39 11.7 
			 Pupils with no SEN 3,600 36 0.06 171,420 50 2.7 
			 All pupils(29) 9,880 100 0.13 344,510 100 4.5 
		
	
	(23) Includes middle schools as deemed.
	(24) For permanent exclusions includes both maintained and non-maintained special schools. For fixed period exclusions excludes non-maintained special schools.
	(25) Figures relating to permanent exclusions are estimates based on incomplete pupil-level data.
	(26) The number of permanent or fixed period exclusions expressed as a percentage of the total number of permanent or fixed period exclusions, as appropriate.
	(27) The number of excluded pupils by SEN stage expressed as a percentage of all pupils with the same SEN stage in primary, secondary and all special schools (excludes dually registered pupils) in January.
	(28) The introduction of the new SEN Code of Practice means that the number of children with SEN without statements reported in 2000/01 and later are not directly comparable with earlier years. Includes pupils with no SEN and SEN pupils without statements.
	(29) There was one permanent exclusion and 12 fixed period exclusions for which stage of SEN was not known—these were included in total for 'all pupils' only.
	Note:
	Totals may not appear to equal the sum of component parts because numbers have been rounded to the nearest 10.
	Source:
	Annual Schools Census and Termly Exclusions Survey